In the beginning …
So what prompted Little Legends? Well, it really grew out of my frustration at not being able to find good places for kids easily.
A couple of years ago, I was feeling stuck in a third floor walk-up flat with my two children, Oliver and Felix. It took me half an hour to get out of the front door with the boys, their pram, their nappies - grim really. On top of that, I didn’t know anyone else with young kids in Olympia, where I lived, and the area didn’t seem to be particularly child-friendly.
It was really hard to find out:
- where other mums hung out, and
- what good places there were for kids in the area
I managed to discover the local Children’s Information Service which published a useful leaflet. But I then had to spend ages looking up each playgroup on my A to Z to see if it was anywhere near me. Having narrowed down the options to a handful, I then had to visit each group to find out how good they were.
After what seemed like ages quizzing other mums and nannies and going through the local directory I eventually found the local swimming pool, a fun softplay place, and a good nursery. Oh, how I wish it had been easier!
After some persuading, my husband finally agreed it was time to move on from his former bachelor pad. But, where should we move to? Where were the decent schools? Where were there good parks? What were the nurseries like? What activities were there for kids?
This is information which parents and carers take for granted once they know their local neighbourhood, but, when you don’t live there, any tips from other parents are like gold dust! Also, each time you think you know everything there is to know is about your area, your kids suddenly outgrow the places you are familiar with or you suddenly hear about some great place round the corner that you have been missing out on.
My brother, Piers, who was working a lot with something called social software (which, erm, is basically using IT to enable knowledge sharing amongst communities). Anyway, he suggested we making a website where this information could be shared. An online grapevine for parents/carers - sounded good to me! And so Little Legends was born.
Hopefully it’s a small step towards helping other parents find out what - and who - is near them. There is a community of other parents nearby, many of them in the same boat, with lots of good advice. It’s no use, though, unless you can find them or learn what sorts of places they recommend.
There are lots of ways in which Little Legends could develop. The main aim, for me, is to help parents share good, friendly and honest advice and make this information easy to find.
Fingers crossed! 
Related Entries:
- Win a £30 Amazon gift voucher
- How to find a good primary school
- Online help for stressed-out mums
- Parents Prefer Private School
- Useful places for kids near you
August 11th, 2006 at 10:58 pm
The short answer is T-shirts…
The Gina Ford vs Mumsnet hoo-haa is bringing up a lot of difficult questions. With the libel laws as they currently are, one big question for me is this: why get involved in any start-up website if there’s a risk of being shut down, and that ris…
August 14th, 2006 at 3:29 pm
Standing on the shoulders of giants … or at least on their toecaps (1)…
Vicky’s written about some of the problems she faced as a mother of young children, and I thought I’d explain some of the thinking behind why we’ve designed Little Legends they way we have….
August 17th, 2007 at 7:16 am
[…] The original impetus behind Little Legends, as Vicky wrote, was to try to ease some of the isolation parents or and those looking after children can feel. The idea behind it is simple really: we’re trying to help people find out what’s good for kids near them, whether it’s schools, or shops or restaurants, and to help people share their experiences of those places. Perhaps naively, I’d thought that this was “a good thing”. […]
October 26th, 2007 at 3:11 pm
[…] Given Vicky’s experience, even if you haven’t lost the confidence to get to know people, where do you start? […]